John W. James

Where were you when I needed you?

The saddest question we ever hear is, "Where were you when I needed you?"

That's what people ask when they find out what we do in helping grievers. We're presenting helpful and accurate information on this site, at the time you need it most, with the hope that you'll never need to ask that question.

It's an honor and a sad privilege to be addressing you, knowing that each of you has recently experienced the death of someone important to you. We also know some of you are reading this because of your care and concern for someone who is confronted by the death of someone important in their life.

We bring our personal experience in dealing with the deaths of people who were important to us, and our professional know-how in helping grievers for more than 30 years. We'll help you distinguish between the "raw grief" that is your normal and natural reaction to the death, and the equally normal "unresolved grief" that relates to the unfinished emotions that are part of the physical ending of all relationships.

A basic reality for most grieving people is difficulty concentrating or focusing. With that in mind, we asked Tributes.com to print our articles in a large type font to make them easier to read. Sharing our concern for grieving people, they agreed.

Ask The Grief Experts

Sometimes unresolved grief can look like competition or comparison.

Q:

I was wondering. It has been nearly two years since my husband died. I have remarried, but I still struggle with grief. My new husband looked at me the other day and said, "I'm not Alex, and never will be." Up until that point, I never realized there was competition or that I was comparing. I had a happy marriage for 15 years and love my new husband very much. How do we move past this?

A Grief Expert Replies:

Dear Joanna,

Thanks for your note and poignant question.

Competition or comparison may not be the real underlying issues that caused your current husband to say what he did.

When you say that you “still struggle with your grief,” it makes it relatively clear to us what may be happening.

When you have a spouse die, as you did, there’s always the possibility that you have some “unresolved grief.”

Unresolved grief is not a bad thing, nor does it mean that you didn’t love your husband who died, and it doesn’t mean that you don’t love your current husband.

What it means is that the death of your spouse may have left you with things you wish had been different, better, or more, and with unrealized hopes, dreams, and expectations about the future.

In the time after your spouse died, you may have accommodated the loss and moved forward in your life, including your new marriage. But that doesn’t mean that you “completed your relationship” to those things that were left unfinished for you, as in “different, better, or more, and unrealized hopes, dreams, and expectations.”

In the beginning, after your husband’s death, you may have been aware of those things that his death left unfinished for you. But as you adapted to his death and moved forward, you may have become less focused on those possibly unfinished things caused not only by his death, but also by what we assume to have been his untimely death. However, being less focused on those past things doesn’t mean that you were emotionally complete with them.

If our presumptions are correct, then what your current husband may be sensing that caused his comment, could be some residual incompleteness, or unresolved grief that affects you, whether you’re aware of it or not.

One of the ways people are impacted by the death of a spouse is that they have a fear of losing someone again. With that comes a tentativeness or loss of trust. Again, you might not be consciously aware of it, but your spouse may be affected.

The good news is that there’s something you can do to become complete with your husband who died, without losing fond memories of the love you shared; and that will help you be more open and trusting (assuming those are issues) in your new marriage.

Go to the library or bookstore and get a copy of The Grief Recovery Handbook. Read it and take the actions it outlines. As you do, you’ll find a shift in yourself and, we believe, a difference in what and how your husband sees you.

At Tributes.com we believe that Every Life has a Story that deserves to be told and preserved.

Tributes.com is the online source for current local and national obituary news and a supportive community where friends and family can come together during times of loss and grieving to honor the memories of their loved ones with lasting personal tributes.